Steve McQueen: 'I want 12 Years a Slave to tell the story of slavery'

McQueen's new film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a free man who was illegally sold into slavery in the 19th century.

Chiwetel Ejiofor in '12 Years A Slave'

In an interview with Flicks and Bits, the filmmaker said he felt that it was important to represent "history" in his new movie.

"[There has been] the absence of a serious treatment of slavery in cinema," McQueen said. "For me it was a no brainer. I just wanted to see it on film. I wanted to see that history on film. It was important. It was that obvious. And that's it."

He went on to say: "I made this movie because I want to tell a story about slavery, a story that hasn't been given a platform in cinema. It's one thing to read about slavery but when you see it within a narrative, it does something different - and that's what I wanted to do.

"Now, if that starts a conversation: wonderful, excellent… it will be about time. But for me this film is about how to survive. I don't know what kind of conversation… I hope it goes beyond race, narrowing it down to race: yes, race is involved, but it's not entirely about that."

McQueen added that the true message of 12 Years a Slave is that "love" allows the human spirit to overcome even the direst of circumstances.

"This film for me is about love. It's a funny word 'love', it's hardly ever used in this kind of context," he said. "But that's what it is about, it is about love. It's one of those things where there's a lot of pain in love, but you have to get through it."

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The director added: "It's the journey of Solomon Northup (Ejiofor) to get back to his family and that's the journey I wanted to go on.

"To not show what he went through, as explicitly as we can, would I think be a disservice to him and his journey, and in a way there would be no point in telling this story if we couldn't tell the story."